The present invention relates to the field of the beverage producing industry and to the packaging industry in general. Various apparatuses and methods, which treat containers, such as for example filling devices, closure devices, conveying devices, sterilization devices and the like, are known from the prior art.
In filling certain beverages an attempt is made to carry this out in a sterile room. In these cases the containers are conveyed through a sterile room and are treated, for example filled, closed or sterilized, during this conveying. In this case an attempt is made to ensure as reliable as possible a sealing of this sterile room off from the environment thereof.
Many of the aforesaid treatment devices have treatment elements which perform movements in the interior of the sterile room, such as for example closure heads which screw the closures onto the containers. In addition, an attempt is made to arrange drive devices, such as for example motors but also guide cams, wherever possible outside the sterile room in order to minimize the risk of contamination in this way.
In order nevertheless to provide a capacity of movement for the treatment element arranged in the interior of the sterile room, so-called folding bellows are used in part in the prior art. These folding bellows are arranged in this case both on a portion of the movable element and for example on a portion of a housing wall and, in this way, they seal off the region between the treatment element and the aforesaid wall, so that the folding bellows itself usually also forms a boundary of the clean room. A drawback of bellows of this type lies in the frequently only very restricted capacity of movement. In this way, for example, folding bellows are known which permit a movement in a longitudinal direction of the treatment element and also those which allow a movement in a preferred direction transversely to this direction. In addition, in the case of some treatment elements, however, a rotational movement of the treatment element would also be desirable. Conventional folding bellows are usually not suitable for compensating rotational movements of this type.